NYC91LA176 · Waco UPF-7
Waco UPF-7 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Kirkwood Airpark (5N5) to Bradford County Airport (N27)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC91LA176
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Waco UPF-7
- Aircraft type
- Waco UPF-7
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N32126
- Operator
- Kriss Alan Kliegle
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kirkwood Airpark (5N5), KIRKWOOD, NYTo Bradford County Airport (N27), Towanda, PA
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · cruise
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Fuel exhaustion
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Flare, improper
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, improper
- Pilot in command › Refueling, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT MADE A FORCED LANDING DUE TO FUEL EXHAUSTION. HE UNDERSHOT THE DESIRED TOUCHDOWN POINT AND THE LANDING GEAR COLLAPSED DURING A HARD LANDING. POST-CRASH EXAMINATION FOUND THE FUEL SYSTEM INTACT WITH ONE TANK DRY AND THE OTHER WITH 3/4 OF AN INCH OF FUEL. THE AIRPLANE HELD 50 GALLONS WITH 47 GALLONS USABLE. THE PILOT HAD FLOWN APPROXIMATELY 3 HOURS 33 MINUTES AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT AND THIS INCLUDED THREE TAKEOFFS. THE FAA REPORTED THE AIRPLANE CONSUMED APPROXIMTELY 15 GALLONS PER HOUR WHILE THE PILOT SAID HE BASED HIS CALCULATIONS ON 12 GALLONS PER HOUR.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO REFUEL THE AIRPLANE, HIS IMPROPER FUEL CONSUMPTION CALCULATIONS, AND HIS FAILURE TO FLARE THE AIRPLANE DURING THE FORCED LANDING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC91LA176
- Event ID
- 20001212X17666
- Case number
- NYC91LA176
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8536608b42311c8b022bf5fb2539533dcf2823a63df05d2bb5523b2798cd419f; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:31:32.609Z.